Trump will pull US out of NATO if he wins election, ex-adviser warns

GiddyGap@lemm.ee to politics @lemmy.world – 624 points –
‘US will be out of NATO’ in second Trump term, former senior adviser warns | CNN Politics
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The United States has maintained longstanding support to NATO. Most recently, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, enacted on December 22, 2023, prohibits the President from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO without approval of a two-third Senate super-majority or an act of Congress.[71] This bill was a response to Donald Trump's repeated expressions of interest in withdrawing from the organization.[72][73]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_NATO#United_States

That link also claims the Greens want out of NATO, so I guess they see eye-to-eye with Trump on that one? Honestly, it makes me less likely to support the Greens now that I know that.

The Green Party in the US is just an extension of the Kremlin aimed at peeling votes away from Democrats in key races.

Don’t worry it’s the same in Europe

What are you talking about? Every "green" party I know in Europe is very much against the war in Ukraine and holds Russia responsible. They are about as anti Russia as it gets. Green parties are also very much pro Europe, they want a stronger Europe with more members and cooperation in the EU. Green parties are either center-left or totally left leaning. Green parties usually get a big chunk of votes, not only marginal like in the US.

Russia is heavily funding and supporting the right and far right parties, who are almost all against a unified Europe. Russia is doing their best to break up the EU with campaigns of misinformation, bots, advertising and direct/indirect funding of right wing political parties.

And Russia is succeeding as well with the far right on the rise all over Europe. They already got Brexit through against all odds and are now working on breaking up the rest. In Germany the rise of the right is still fresh, so there is a lot of resistance. But other countries are much less resistant.

Russia is heavily funding and supporting the right and far right parties

Welcome to the new warfare that caught the west totally off-guard. The "poorly educated" were the first casualties and have been recycled into the Russian forces.

I’m genuinely curious if there is no way to stop all/most of these influence & astroturf ops, will we just see a walled off internet with hefty firewalls or content moderation at national ‘borders’? It’d be a huge upheaval to the internet, but otherwise we’re stuck trying for a 100% defense against state cyber attacks

My personal take here is that playing defense is a losing game and that we really need to kick off another 1968 movement. A counter culture that is infecting and firmly against Russia and conservatives.

Thanks for the info. I admit my experience was based on the Italian greens who are irrelevant and generally left leaning, which in Italy means Russophile like anything left of the dems, and on what I know of the German greens, which is that they lobbied for getting rid of clean energy and ramping up the use of coal / gas / petrol, all Russian imports.

I don't know about other European countries, but Germany's greens have kept a relatively tidy ship compared to other parties.

Which is why Russia is puppeteering Germany's far-right to view them as a kind of combined enemy, you often hear them use the term "Linksgrunversifft" / "left-green-soiled" towards people who hold the wrong opinions.

Didn't they push a similar joined term in America 2016? I remember encountering the words "liberal elite" a lot, probably an attempt to redirect the resentment against the uppity conservative establishment towards liberals instead. I guess it worked.

The US Greens are largely subsidized by Republican funders, and Green presidential candidates have been dinner guests of Putin. The US Greens aren’t an independent environmentalist party but are a GOP stalking horse.

Does that apply just for 2024?

Good question and I do not know. And my searching isn't coming up with a good answer either.

I believe it’s forever, unless found unconstitutional or congress changes and passes a replacement.

The 2024 part of the Bill name is just so you know which fiscal bill it is.

Edited for typo.

Which greens? The Scottish greens?

Yes. The Scottish Greens. That's definitely for sure who I was talking about.

Lots of greens around in different countries.

And which country do you think I might have been talking about?

Didn't know. That's why I asked.

Well... there's two possible ways you could have found out for yourself-

  1. You could have just clicked the link and saw which Green Party I was talking about.
  2. You could have read your own headline and figured it out.

I read the link and there are references to greens in several countries. And I suppose I could have assumed you were talking about the US, but I've never heard of a Green Party in the US.

Now I'm sorry I asked. Holy crap.

I can understand the confusion, because it's really annoying that a lot of American on Lemmy assumes everything is US-based. Wasn't as much of an issue pre-Reddit exodus.

In this case though, you're being downvoted probably because the link sends you directly to the United States section via Withdrawal_from_NATO#United_States, which mentions the Green Party, so the context was there.

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But remember folks! There’s a lot of (disillusioned) people here that would like everyone to know that Trump and Biden are exactly the same!

No. Just no. We pressure Biden because we want him to be better. We believe he can be. Trump is a lost cause who should be in prison for attempting a coup.

No, you do it because you're a weaksauce milquetoast coward who goes after the weaker party in a confrontation because you care more about avoiding conflict than you do about what's right.

And you're alienating all of the pro-Palestine people who want a third party, and literally anyone else who wants literally anyone else in office other than those two cretins.

It won't kill you to support something different instead of being a cowardly little weasel for once in your life, I promise you.

three paragraphs and yet you didn't say anything lol

Bruh you okay?

Are you listening at all or are you just looking for a cheap gotcha moment?

Instead of advocating for a third party that can possibly offer us something better, all they have to offer is more of the same or a concentration camp, and neither choice is acceptable.

Hooray! My 3rd party candidate got 9% of the vote! It shows that there is a chance for a 3rd party in the US, assuming democracy survives 4 more years under Republican/Trump executive control.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025

Then all of you find a third party and vote for them instead of Biden. Force the change you want to see in thr world. Until then, get out of my face.

Precisely three third party candidates have won any EC votes in the last century: George Wallace, Strom Thurmond and Robert La Follete. Follete won Wisconsin, and the other two unsurprising only won states in the deep south.

The likely "best case" scenario would be something like the 1912 election, which was essentially a three way race between former Republican president Teddy Roosevelt running third party against the incumbent Republican Taft, and the Democratic challenger, Willson.

Willson won 41.8% of the popular vote, and 81% of of EC vote. Taft got 23% of the vote, and managed to carry Vermont and Utah. Roosevelt got 27% of the vote, and carried 6 states. Eugene Debs didn't win a single state with his 6% of the vote - and its worth noting that the last time a third party candidate did as well as Debs was Perot, back in 96.

A majority of the country voted for a current or former Republican president, yet the election was a land slide for the Democrat in the EC.

Because of the structure of the EC, third parties are either irrelevant protest votes (such as the south protest voting for segregationists) or they blow up in your face. Why would this time be different?

Edit:

One significant problem with a pro-Palestinian third party revolt against Biden is that Democratic support for Palestinians isn't anywhere near high enough for a universal revolt against Biden on that issue. It'd just be begging for a repeat of 1912.

Netanyahu's poll numbers are pretty rock bottom among Democrats, but a majority of older Democrats see Israel as a legitimate state with an unfortunately far right current government that's going too far in their current war against a terrorist organization. They're not looking for a free Palestine that stretches from the river to the sea.

Have you tried coordinating 5 people for a dinner party? Imagine trying to get 75 million people to all agree to switch to one of various third parties?

Biden got the most votes of any president in history. Trump is ranked number two. It is simply a risk we cannot take at this time. If you vote 3rd party in 2024, you are betting your rights, women's rights, non-Christians rights, LGBTQ rights, worker's rights, and the possiblity of ever having free and fair elections on the most hazy of fevered pipe dreams. Anyone who does this a fucking moron. You're out here bitching about how conservative Biden is, when christofascist terrorists have a gun pressed into the back of your head. You can feel morally superior in your ghetto I guess.

Then the left would not have been able to organize at all, yet here we are.

People are moving away from Biden and standing by him is going to cost you the future of this country.

You should probably practice being quiet. In the future you are ushering in, you won't have a right to express opinions. Unless you are a straight white wealthy christian man, in that case, feel free to keep blabbing.

That's what you all tell me to do on Lemmy here, now, when you blatantly refuse to enforce your own rules or reign in your own shitty, authoritarian leadership. You even said to my face that you'll do whatever the hell you want and that's just how the internet works. You ALREADY expect people to just live that way so what makes you think any of your holier than thou grandstanding means anything?

You're probably just butthurt it isn't you running for President.

Oh hey, I think the comment was meant for someone else who was telling you that voting 3rd party when the ability to have free and fair elections is at stake is a sign that you might have a room-temp IQ. I haven't said anything about enforcing rules or doing whatever I want.

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absolutely no one has ever legitimately argued that. the point is that both choices suck and we get no say in it

both choices suck

What puerile nonsense.

Trump already demonstrated that he was a complete disaster and Russian asset, and I hate linking to the evil empire, but:

r/WhatBidenHasDone

He really is being held to a totally different standard by the media and the cut off their nose to spite their face far left.

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It would backfire like Brexit. Imagine the USA openly shunted by all former allies about their war crimes and other international crimes. The US forgets they currently can get away with a lot, and they do, because they are also an important ally. If you remove their NATO support, what reason is left to whistle ignorance?

The US forgets they currently can get away with a lot, and they do, because they are also an important ally

I think it's only Trump who forgets this not the US. I am not even sure he understands it really

It's not only Trump.

It's also Trump voters and voters who stay at home and let him back into office.

I'll be pleasantly surprised if a majority of American voters turn out against him.

Last time it was about 1 in 3 voted for him, 1 in 3 voted against him, and 1 in 3 didn't show up.

Brexit was a disaster because the UK economy was third-place-and-shrinking in the economic block. They had no leverage.

NATOXIT would be a much bigger deal, because the US is the premier global military power and the single largest exporter of weapons and associated tech.

Also, the NATO thing is pure bluster in order to assert leverage over the bloc, while Brexit was a dog-catching-the-car scenario. The Tories invented so many fictions about how awful EU membership was that they couldn't accept what generous concessions were offered. Meanwhile, Trump will happily take a big personal kickback for a small concession on arms sales.

The US getting held accountable for it's war crimes? Sounds too good to be true.

Backfiring to Boris looks a lot different than backfiring to Trump. Boris Johnson, even though he's a piece of shit, still cares about England. Trump only cares about himself and would let Putin waltz right into the War Room if he wanted to.

I’m not in favor of leaving NATO immediately, but to say that Europe would have much leverage is disingenuous. The US enjoys many strategic advantages over Europe besides NATO membership they have:

Large wealthy consumer base with healthy demographics, worlds most advanced military, fastest growing net exporter of energy, worlds largest blue ocean navy that has kept sea lanes open for trade, etc. etc.

Europe is incapable of projecting power beyond EU boarders without US logistical support. They lack the necessary logistical support to do it at scale. They also can’t perform SEAD operations and don’t have the satellite and intelligence gathering assets that the US has.

In short they can take action against the US at their own peril.

Don't know what consumer base you're referring to, but other than the wealthy keeping the economy afloat by maintaining their expenditures on creature comforts, most people in America are broke as fuck.

It's not about Europe. It's about the massive fuckton of TS//SCI shit shared directly with FIVE EYES and NATO, which shows the exact locations of US strategic nuclear weapons, strategic weapons protocols, intelligence gathering techniques and sources, etc that can almost immediately be sent directly to Russia and China as soon as the US walks out the door. It's about the first line of defense missile detection radars, the cryptologic keys, Global Campaign Plans, Contingency Plans, PBNZ coordinates, non-overflight coordinates, FLAGWORDS, etc.

And that's not all - you also lost all international trade, everywhere, forever. Bye-bye middle eastern oil and Chinese manufactured goods, because all your oh-so-friendly shipping lanes and freedom of the seas is now contested waters full of could-be-privateers. If the EU, by pure necessity, pivots Eastward into a pan-Eurasian bloc, that's game for the US.

Breaking away would be painful but there is nothing you’ve stated on the Op Sec side that can’t be changed or moved. Early warning radars are forward positioned for the safety of our allies. Shuttering them would hurt them more than us.

Cheap Chinese goods are a thing of the past. The CCP under Xi is openly hostile to the West. Due to the one child policy their demographics are even more terminal than Europes or Russia’s. The US is in the middle of the largest industrial build out in modern history because of this.

We don’t need Middle Eastern oil, the US is the fastest growing net exporter of oil and gas. If anything they compete with our energy products. Europe and Asia would be hit harder by the US pulling back from guaranteeing freedom of the seas for the global order. If US ships were not on station off the coast of Yemen you would see a larger disruption of trade. Europe has contributed very little to this operation which they are arguably more dependent on.

The US also has the best demographics of the Western world, we are the largest driver of international trade. Europe needs our healthy growing market and workforce more than we need theirs which are in terminal decline.

Look man, if nothing else, we're subsidizing your insane deficit spending and keeping you from hyperinflation by keeping USD as currency reserves. The EU and the US are comparable sized economies, and I could also say the EU is held back a lot by the still present divisions across its members. An external rallying event would most likely catapult integration and economic and military strength.

All that said, there is no reasonable way forward for the US or the EU without keeping the current world order, which means keeping a strong alliance. If the US and the EU decide on a trade war, that would most likely mean insane inflation and economic breakdown, and a Chinese new world order.

So let's stop comparing dick sizes, get all our fucking fascists back in their holes, and let's try making a friendly alliance work?

So, you cool if Canada nopes out of NORAD too then? Gonna use smoke signals for your DEW?

Canada can’t defend their own airspace without US assistance. They have 78 VERY old and tired CF-18s that date back to 1982 to patrol an airspace larger than the US.

They can nope out of whatever they want and get taken over by Russia and China. (Shit even India doesn’t respect their sovereignty and runs Special Ops on their soil.) However I very much doubt the US will let that happen.

We know. Get out and vote!!!

But remember, vote for Biden and not for Trump. If you play nice and behave, a group of unknown people that you didn't vote for might actually vote for Biden so he can stay president for another 4 years. If you voted for Trump, I guess that group of electoral college people might care enough to still vote for Biden? But who cares anyway. Neither Biden nor Trump actually do anything. They just tell the rest of us to do as they say....I'm being sarcastic, vote Biden! Please! Electoral college dudes.... because we know you're all dudes ... Please could you just vote for Biden this time?

One issue at a time. First, face the existential problem, then address the systemic problem.

It requires approval of the US congress.

Don't look now but they give him pretty much everything he wants.

They need to get past the Senate filibuster.

But the real problem is a Commander in Chief who doesn't want to fulfill treaty obligations. Congress doesn't have a mechanism to force that, just impeachment which we've seen fail already. So while we can't officially leave, we aren't going to be participating under him either.

Implying checks and balances will apply to "only 1 day" dictator Don.

So what happens if he just says not to go help NATO if article 5 is invoked (if that's the one where a member is attacked)? Doing nothing seems more up his alley anyways, pulling out requires more work so he'll probably just say no if it's needed.

I got no idea if the US armed forces can deploy without the president's approval in some way or if Trump says no go then it's completely off. Been wondering as a NATO neighbor who's country he called a security threat his first term.

Sure, with Kaine's and Rubio's bill from December, it now requires Senate approval. But all Trump really needs to do is to say that the US won't help its allies, which is what he's doing. And since NATO is based on deterrence, he's effective undermining trust in NATO as an alliance. The winners are Russia and China.

You know who also wasn't in NATO? Ukraine.

Bruh, if Trump wins and we pull out of Nato, Russia won't even have to invade us. Trump will give Putin a fist bump and a welcome basket when he arrives off the plane.

For those that want to break everything, this is a feature, not a bug. The magats would rather send the world into the toilet rather than not be able to "own the libs" (and women, and POC, and LGBTQ and immigrants, and anyone with one iota more education than them, etc.).

The magats would rather send the world into the toilet rather than not be able to "own the libs" let their opponents have any success or peace

With the text adjustments above, it's clearly something they've learned from their Russian mentors.

So usa are going to leave there military bases on our land right ?

Well last time trump did a withdrawal of troops they left everything for the taliban, so it stands to reason it would happen again.

The elites don't want you to know this but the fighter jets at overseas military bases are free you can take them home. I have 12 F-35s

Hey, hello Howard, next door neighbor... Oi yeah get your jumbo jet out of my airport!

Jelly, I'm going to give it a shot, I'll let you know how it goes.

any Party may cease to be a Party [of NATO] one year after its notice of denunciation has been given to the Government of the United States of America, which will inform the Governments of the other Parties of the deposit of each notice of denunciation

“America? It’s America, we quit”

Euro confusion intensifies

— Hello America, we need to talk.

— Sure America, what's going on?

— Not on the phone, this is very important.

— Where do you want to meet?

— Somewhere public.

This shouldn't really be news to people, he literally attempted that once already.

I believe there is now a law that says that a President can't pull out of NATO. Only Congress can make that call.

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No, Putin didn't ask him to do that. Totally just an idea he has for some reason.

I wonder if the rest of NATO would allow this. Like, okay, the US "pulls out" and stops all their commitments to NATO. It would still be in NATO's best interest, should Trump eventually leave office, that the US retain its membership. Create a paperwork "penalty box" that allows Trump to feel like he's won but allow future, more sane Presidents, an easy on-ramp back into full membership.

I wonder if the rest of NATO would allow this.

I imagine he'd "pull us out of NATO" like he "pulled us out of NAFTA". Which is to say he'd slap a new "America First" label on the old organization, take a few weeks off to vacation at a bunch of European golf courses, do a big signing ceremony in front of OAN handi-cams, and yell "I Made America Great Again" into the faces of anyone who thinks this is baby-tier bullshit.

Create a paperwork “penalty box” that allows Trump to feel like he’s won but allow future, more sane Presidents, an easy on-ramp back into full membership.

I think the real end-game is about goosing US military exports. Trump threatens a pull out, on the condition that all the member states boost their domestic military budgets. Then those member states buy more shit from American MIC contractors. The MIC rewards Trump with political capital. And Trump takes kickbacks in the form of club memberships and no-show jobs for his extended family.

My man loves to bluff about taking his ball and going home. And he'll happily sign a big executive order with an oversized sharpee, proclaiming "We Aren't In NATO Anymore!" whether or not we actually left, because it plays well with his base. But the real influence that the US has in NATO is more about Trump extending/denying France or the UK or Finland or whomever with navy and air support to hold business assets in former colonies.

Trump knows that and he knows it offers him immense leverage, given how much these other countries rely on US power projection. So he'll very likely get a new wave of EU militarization at the enrichment of American MIC, because its the only way the other NATO states decouple their reliance on the US for "free" military support.

That said, that can backfire. Several major member states of the EU are already talking about proper remilitarization that wasn't needed since the wall fell. There are nascent beginnings of a joint European army and a joint European MIC. Why would EU states spend more money on US stuff that it already thinks it doesn't need, if it can just use the same money and pour it into the FCAS project for example, creating jobs and keeping money at home?

Orbán used to be a huge Trump fan, and he actually went and started spending more money on the military when the was Trump's thing. Only it wasn't American F-35s he got, it was a bunch of German Leopard 2A8 tanks and French Eurocopter EC725 helicopters and Norwegian NASAMS launchers. There is also a stated intent to skip 5th gen and get into the FCAS if and when that materializes.

Oh definitely. US military technology is exhaustively oversold and carry enormous overhead costs that dilute their real practical military capacity. Our new war in Yemen (much like our old war in Afghanistan) illustrate the problem neatly, as we launch $10M missiles at $100 targets and still can't get the Gulf of Adan safe enough for traffic to resume.

Why would EU states spend more money on US stuff that it already thinks it doesn’t need

Because they're buying a relationship with the US Military more than they are buying the hardware itself. The promise of US Aircraft Carriers and US Satellites and experienced US military leadership coming in as the primary driver of military engagement means kicking back a billion or two to keep the Americans friendly is mostly worth it.

But if the EU grows more internally coherent as a military power.... yeah, that could very easily go away. We could be staring at another Great Rival in an increasingly fractured global rat race if the Europeans establish themselves as self-reliant.

Thanks for welcoming me to your town Mayor Winky.

From what I understand, Trump alone could not make the US leave NATO. And despite how despicable some Republicans are, I think he’s made enough enemies within his own party to never see that actually happen.

Perhaps the Americans leaving NATO turns out to be the thing that prevents WW3. We will only know this if WW3 starts in a similar manner to WW1 with all the alliances.

Thinking the U.S. leaving NATO might stop World War III is kind of missing the point. Back in World War I, yeah, complex alliances dragged everyone into a mess. But NATO? It's a whole different beast. It's all about keeping peace by making it clear that messing with one member is like picking a fight with the whole gang. It's more of a big, collective "back off" sign to anyone thinking of starting trouble.The U.S. being part of NATO actually helps keep things calm. It's like having a really strong friend in the neighborhood who helps make sure nobody starts any fights. So, saying the U.S. leaving NATO could prevent a global war is kinda backwards. NATO's there to prevent wars, not start them.

Military alliances factored into the world war because there were two of them of similar strength and size. There is no military alliance that is of similar strength to NATO that would be reasonably able to pick a fight with it. About CSTO or a potential Russia-China alliance, if they mattered and worked, there'd be Chinese or Kyrgyz or whatever troops in Ukraine.

If NATO is severely weakened or dissolved, that levels the playing field a bit more. Especially since not all NATO members are nuclear powers. Combining that with the batshit warmongering leadership of some countries, that would cause an escalation in the war in Europe.

You ever consider why China is building aircraft carriers now, when previously they had no need, as their interests were limited to places they could access by land?

I guess they want to have their own adventures bombing far away places like the US.

Aside all the political aspects and people dying, the aviation nerd in me is actually super interested in what Chinese naval aviation will look like once they get to where they want to be. Aren't they using their own versions of the Su-33 right now? J-15 is it? The 5th gen fighter they are using looks far too heavy to do ski jumps.

NATO is exactly the same beast, to those not in it. All those pre WW1 alliances were M.A.D. prototypes, same as NATO.

That would be a good thing.

do you care to elaborate

Of course the whole "encourage Putin to attack other European nations" thing is stupid in typical Trump fashon, but less american imperialism is always welcome.

How exactly will leaving NATO make America less imperialistic? Was it the safety of the mighty European security umbrella that enabled the US to be like that?

that's fair. i am generally anti-imperialism as well, but i don't understand what happens when nato goes away in this case

No he won't.

He made this exact same campaign promise back in 2016 and he didn't pull the US out of NATO when he became president.

The only thing he did was to call out the majority of member countries that weren't paying their agreed about share, causing (primarily) the US to make up the difference.

I consider this campaign fundamentally different than his first.

First and foremost - he is a grifter and conman at the end of a con with enemies on all sides. This is a desperate man. If elected his goal is to first wipe his slate clean via a pardon - and then will be to retain power thereafter.

To achieve these goals he will do anything. What makes this terrifying is he genuinely believes himself to be the smartest person in the room. He is a shortsighted idiot that is playing chess with blinders on while the rest of the world is playing 4d chess.

Other nations fears of another term with that man are not unfounded.

There is no such thing as the "North Atlantic" it is a nonsensical organization, there is no logical reason for the US and Canada to be in a millitary alliance based on the made up polity of the "North Atlantic", not saying that European countries shouldn't care about regional defense, but that has nothing to do with the US or Canada. Nato is just an excuse for the US to park it's nukes and bases in Europe and extend it's millitary power, no one needs nukes, and people especially don't need foreign nukes in their country.

edit: also Trump would never pull out of NATO, the farthest he would ever go is threaten and then coerce European countries pay more of a share of the budget and say he made a "better deal", but he's quite obviously bluffing

You do know that the UK and France have their own nuclear stockpiles, right?

They are not nearly as large or as capable as what the US has though

They have more than enough to wipe out humanity. What else do they need?

If it was that simple, the US would have stopped producing missiles and warheads a long time ago

The U.S. hasn't produced a new nuclear weapon since 1989 and has fewer nuclear weapons now than any time since 1968.

https://www.acq.osd.mil/ncbdp/nm/NMHB2020rev/chapters/chapter4.html

That's misleading at best. W76-2 began production a few years ago. B61-12 recently began production with B61-13 on the way. The current US stockpile may be down from its cold war height in bare numbers, but that's not the point. The US is always improving its nuclear technology and refitting, upgrading, or re-manufacturing its existing stockpile. Clearly "wiping out humanity" is not enough.